Iraqi Journal of Civil Engineering

This study is conducted to investigate the strength and stiffness of clayey soil stabilized with fly ash-based geopolymer for unpaved roads. Two sodium hydroxide concentrations of 6 and 8M and two alkali solution ratios of NaOH:Na2SiO3= 1 and 1.5 were considered. Other factors such as fly ash replacement ratio (by mass), curing period, and curing temperature were held constant at 15%, 48 hours, and 65 C, respectively. The unconfined compressive strength (UCS) and ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) tests were performed to evaluate the mixtures. Outcomes of this study revealed that the strength of the clayey soil could be increased by up to 94%. Additionally, increasing sodium silicate content in the alkali solution increased the solution's activity and yielded higher strength and stiffness. This study confirms the effectiveness of the geopolymer binder for the improvement of soil strength and stiffness.

The most concerning issue confronting the planet these days is the ascent in Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels to record levels. The cement industries are answerable to between 6-8 % of worldwide CO2 emitting. In construction sectors, researchers tried to contribute in decreasing of CO2 in atmosphere produced by industry and using that was released in air. Accelerated CO2 curing is one of the methods used to get benefit from CO2 in the air. In this paper, CO2 concentration in addition to pressure, relative humidity and period of curing all had a significant influence upon the features of Cement – Based Composites. Results showed that using CO2 curing with different and specific properties of fibers (types, quantities, circumstances and lengths) improved the most mechanical properties and enhanced durability such as: strength, stiffness, ductility, toughness, porosity, and absorption.

This study introduce a review on structural behavior of different structural elements such as beams, slabs, column….etc, under different type of loading. Through this review one can see the effectiveness of using ferrocement in casing slabs, beams subjecting to bending or impact load. Also the ferrocement make an essential role in strengthening of damage columns and beams.

The finite element method is used to simulating the behavior of deep foundations subjected to negative skin friction in Basrah soil. Pile groups are analyzed under dragforces using 3D Plaxis software. Linear elastic and Mohr–Coulomb constitutive relations are adopted for the pile and soil materials. Three sites are selected to perform the study, where the negative skin friction is developed due to fill loads. The dragforces on driven piles, within (3 x 3) square groups with spacing of (3B), are evaluated and compared to their counterparts of single piles. The dragforces are decreased on piles constituting the group, and the reduction depends on pile location within the group. Centeral piles exhibit maximum reductions of (50%). To study the effect of pile spacing, a range of [(3B) to (6B)] was adopted. Apart from pile location, it is concluded that, the dragforce is proportional to pile spacing.

Nonlinear numerical analysis of nine reinforced concrete beams with dimensions (150 x 200 x 1200) width, height and length, respectively, was carried out through the finite element theory using the ANSYS software (version 15) to know the effect of different properties of layers in the one beam on the flexural behavior of reinforced concrete beams. The beams are consisting from two layers for the one cross-section. three beams are similar properties layers and the other six are with different properties layers. The beams differ among them depending on the percentage of Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fibers added, the location of the fibrous concrete layer as well as the thickness of the layer. PET fibers were added in proportions (0%,0.5%, and 1%) from volume of the one layer, with dimension (50 x 4 x 0.3) mm length, width, and thickness respectively. All beams are reinforced with steel reinforcement (6 mm diameter at the top, 10 mm diameter for reinforcement against shear and 12 mm diameter in the tension area). The mechanical properties of each type of mixture have been studied. It was found that the different properties of the layers significantly affected the flexural behavior of reinforced concrete beams. Also the results of the numerical modeling were very close to the laboratory results obtained from the practical study, where the largest difference between the two studies was 8% and 11% for the load and deflection respectively at the ultimate point

In this paper, the laboratory experiments works were conducted to study the effect of adding recycle waste plastic as polyethene terephthalate PET fibers on the fresh properties as the slump test and hardened properties as a compressive strength, splitting strength, elastic modulus, ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), density, absorption, voids, flexural toughness and flexural rupture for the normal concrete. The parameter of this paper included percentage of fibers content (0%, 0.5%, 1%, and 1.5%). The geometric design of the PET fibers was a strip with dimensions 4mm width, 70mm length, and 0.035mm thickness. The aspect ratio of the PET fibers in this work was about 50. The results showed that the PET fibers improving the most properties of the normal concrete and on the other hand there is negative effect on some properties of concrete. There is a significant increase in flexural toughness, about 21.2%, while the compressive strength and splitting were increased by 5% and 18.8%, respectively. Besides this improving, using PET fibers conform to the principle of sustainability, which is reducing the pollution and the cost of waste plastic disposal. It’s observed that properties of concrete as a static modulus of Elasticity and density were decreased with the fiber percentage increased

Recently, COVID-19 pandemic has swept the world left many victims as well as heavy casualties in the global economic system. As a result, governments have applied some necessary actions such as curfew and restricted mobility between cities, in order to control the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. However, these actions can decrease the traffic congestions within megacities leading to cleaner air and lower temperature. On the other hand, these actions have negative impacts on tourism in congested cities like Karbala and Najaf.Nowadays, urban climatic phenomena within holy cities have attracted researchers . The aim of this study is the evaluation of Urban Climate in term of temperature before and during COVID-19 pandemic period by using Landsat images and GIS techniques. Final findings showed a difference between Land surface temperature before and during COVID-19, which reached about 9 C° within built-up areas and bare lands. While this difference showed a relatively slight decrease within vegetated areas and waterbodies reached about 2 C°. This indicated that built-up areas and bare lands have been mainly affected by governmental restrictions during COVID-19 compared to other areas. Our analysis indicated that the temperature of the surface in urban areas has decreased during COVID-19 compared to the period before COVID-19. The proposed method can pave the way for planners and decision-makers to evaluate other holy cities in terms of the environment and recent disasters like the COVID-19 pandemic

The difficulty that faces the geotechnical engineers how to find the alternative and effective method to improve bearing capacity and reduce foundation settlement. Therefore, the skirt is considered one of the methods to improving the shallow foundation bearing capacity on different soil. The mechanism of skirt work is confinement soil below the foundation and decrease settlement of the foundation. Soil engineers are worked to devise this method as an alternative to pile foundation for conventional buildings. This paper reviews most of these studies of skirted foundations with different types of soil including laboratory tests, field tests, centrifuge models, numerical method and theoretical analysis; these studies are used in investigation the behaviors skirted foundations.